


and we're a million miles away

by hachimachis



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, Sailor!Pat, Siren!Brian, Sirens, brian "messy romantic bitch" david gilbert, brian doesn't know how to deal with his emotions, depressed pat, pat doesn't know how to express his emotions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-06-23 04:57:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15598782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hachimachis/pseuds/hachimachis
Summary: Pat sings to the sea when he's alone.  One day, he hears it sing back.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY COPS! this is a work of fiction! However! if you are affiliated with the real life people who share the names of the characters depicted in this fic! fuck off please

Pat leaned over the edge of the ship, grabbing the lip of his hat as wind whipped through his hair.  The sky was curtained with grey, wispy clouds, filtering the sun’s bleak glare and bolstering a muted chill hanging in the air.  He shivered lightly, and stared into the cold, churning waters.

They were about two weeks into their voyage, and Pat was already losing it.

 

For the most part, keeping busy _should_ be a welcome distraction from the open sea, stretching tight over the horizon at every angle.  It drove sailors mad, even those who had full bellies and a warm home to return to. Raising the sails, keeping the masts oiled, lowering the sails, manning the pumps that kept water from pooling in the nether reaches of the ship; it was all busywork, necessary labor that kept you moving, but pulled on you in a way that left your hands red and raw and your muscles bunched tight together.

Pat used to listen to the way the other men complained, keeping an ear open as he worked.  They would groan, voices wrought with fatigue, grumbling about the way their backs knotted, the way their legs gave out.  His heart would ache with empathy; he knew this pain.

But as he listened closer, he heard how their grief was laced with a quiet glee, how their cries were empty, meaningless things, noise to fill the silence as they pulled the ropes, mopped the deck.  Pat knew this was how they found a friend in each other. They settled into their lives with a complacency Pat didn’t know how to have, and this frustrated him.

The more trips he went on, the deeper Pat’s unease ran.  He knew he wasn’t...happy with this. He didn’t know if he ever would be.  But what choice did he fucking have? Nothing paid, nothing he was qualified for.  

The only solace he had from the noisy buildup, the weary cycle of the days, was the nights he spent above deck, stargazing in solitude.

The crew needed a lookout, and Pat would always be a little too quick to volunteer, muttering a hasty “I’m on deck tonight,” the words tumbling from his lips in a rush.  These nights meant more to him than he knew how to express, a brief moment of silence, a moment to reflect. Pat often felt cramped, unsure of how to exhale in a way that would release the pressure built up in his chest, trapped beneath his spine.

It was all he could do to fix his eyes on the endless waters surrounding him, finding a home in his routine daydreams privy to a sea of stars.

As the sun trudged its way through the sky overhead, Pat found himself anticipating the day’s end.  He watched as the shadows dragged across the worn wood, watched the way they warped and danced with the light trailing over the horizon line.

One by one, his crewmates began to turn in as the last wisps of color dissipated across the length of the sky, giving way to the musty glow of twilight.  Pat arched his back and stretched, slowly standing up to meander across the deck to his favorite stargazing spot.

A few times, Pat had tried to clamber up to the crow’s nest, ignoring the way the rope cut into his palms as he clung to it.  He didn’t-- he didn’t have a _fear_ of heights, exactly, he just felt it a bit unnecessary to be so _high_ while admiring the twinkling sky above.  The small platform was poorly built, shoddy handrails the only things keeping Pat from plummeting to his certain death, and the way the moon so dimly lit the outline of the whole thing made him panic a little more than he’d like to admit.  Regardless, it wasn’t for him.

As Pat stretched his legs out, hanging carelessly above the choppy waters, he wrapped a hand firmly around the long wooden bow and breathed deeply.  

He loved the way the saltsmell struck him; the way it tugged on his lungs never grew old even as years began to pile up behind him.  He loved the ebb and flow of the waves, how they crashed fiercely, breaking on the hull, but lapped gently and quickly in its wake. He learned to grow soft with the creaking of the ship, the low murmur of the wood which held it together, fast and strong, encrusted with remarkable sea life.  

He especially admired how the moon shone on the water, how its glow caught in the dancing waves, pools of light trapped beneath the shimmering surface.  It took his breath away on the best nights, and made his eyes gleam with longing on the worst.

 

But most of all, Pat loved the stars.

He loved them like they were his mother, his sister, his father, his lover.  A stretch of warm velvet dusted with a coat of twinkling powdered sugar, blues and whites and yellows freckled across an unforgiving sky.  It caught in his throat to imagine himself mingling among the stars, twirling, waltzing, dancing with the moon, a night spent with whimsical, reckless abandon.  It’s almost _taunting_ to Pat, to leave him leaning against the bow, legs hung over the edge of his ship, night after night after night.

 

Something about the lonely expanse of stars dotted against the sky surrounding him invited Pat to sing.

It was a slow song, wobbling on unsteady sea legs.  It resonated from his chest, expanding outwards, a hum that buzzed low in his head.  He sang to nobody, to everybody, to the fish buried deep beneath the sea. He sang to fill the rows of empty seats trapped in his chest, the words lodged beneath his ribs that he does not know how to express, wants desperately to share with anyone, everyone.

Surrounded by people who know what they’re doing and where they’re going, Pat usually lived with words stuck in his throat.  He sometimes wondered if it was a curse that made a hush fall upon him, unable to speak much of his desire, let alone sing to those around him.  But up here leaning on the bow with the lapping of water at the hull as his only audience, beneath a curtain of stars, he let a sad, mournful song slip through the air.

 

_“Night, are you here again?_

_Night, won’t you let me in?”_

 

The words mixed with the ocean ambience, hushed by the churning of the sea.

 _  
_ _“I have lied here waiting_

_But when I lay me down to rest_

_It’s part of some eternal jest”_

 

Cracking from disuse, he let his voice grow louder, emboldened by the twinkling sky, the twinge of sorrow in his heart.

 

_“Though since you’ve left me here, I’ve grown_

_I still wish I weren’t here alone”_

 

As he let the last words dissolve among the air, Pat sighed deeply and ran a tired hand through his hair.  Fucking stupid. This whole situation was stupid. This shouldn’t be a routine for him, he shouldn’t settle for living his life wishing for something better, something he didn’t know how to have, didn’t know how to _seek_ , even.  Fuck. He should’ve run away and become a pirate like his sister.  She was always the smarter one.

As Pat slowly sank to the floor of the deck to get himself settled for the night, he froze.

This was not the first time he had sung to himself in the still of the night.  This wasn’t even the first time in a _week_ that he had sung, soft, and low, and always to himself, never above a murmur.  The words were always lost to the turning of the sea, the creak of the ship. He was sure of that.

 

But this was the first time that the sea had sung back.

Careful, warm words, fullbodied and _glowing_ , Pat could feel the _hurt_ buried deep beneath the song’s surface.  It was a song of mourning, plaintive and drenched in thick fog, soaked in humming, marinated in honey.  It wrapped long, dizzy, warm fingers around his head, stroking down his neck, whispering secrets in his ears, dripping down his spine.  His limbs felt heavy, too big for his body, he wanted to drift into the stream of stars once more, float up, up, away, to wherever the song came from.  He was sure he’d find a home there, he just _knew._

 

It was the most beautiful song he’d ever heard, and he would hear it in his dreams for months to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> recently i've been working on a siren au for brian (it's all i've been making content for. fuck. help.) and i've never really...made an au before so i've been treating it like my child. people have started to latch on and i'm very grateful
> 
> a couple days ago i threw sailor pat into the mix! and it's great
> 
> i haven't written a fic in 4-5 years, if this has any glaring errors i am very sorry
> 
> (also this may take a while to finish. i have the whole thing outlined but i'm only writing it inbetween art)


	2. Chapter 2

For a month, Brian had been desperately, sorely, pining for somebody.

 

He knew it was foolish, knew he shouldn’t, knew he couldn’t ever– but he couldn’t help but admire the way the sun caught his profile just so, couldn’t look away from his dark eyes, the way they were always so flooded with longing, with malcontent.  Brian couldn’t help but stare, transfixed, at the way he sat on the edge of the bow and gazed at the blanket of stars with something like love sickness, after his crewmates had gone below deck for the night.

Pining was irrational, Brian knew this, as well as he knew that it was too late.

Brian slipped beneath the waves when the sailor boy whipped his head around and peered into the dark waters, hid behind rocks when he crossed the deck.  It would be reckless, dangerous even, to be seen by a human boy. But the boy drew him back each time. And each time he carefully watched his tracks, kept his head bobbed low, slipped away into the night.

His heart was bright under the moon’s glow as each dusk fell, but the ache ran deep and fullbodied. This wasn’t like the last times.

This time, Brian felt his heart skip each time he saw the boy’s features, outlined delicately by the moon’s gleam, light cast soft across his visage like old porcelain kept fresh.  

This time, he bit back a deep sigh when the boy shivered lightly, bit by the chilled ocean air, and Brian was plagued by thoughts of wrapping tight arms around his shoulders, soothing his shakes.

And this time, the boy sang first.

Brian was not often left to ponder things, he found. There was not a lot of room for thought when you were burdened with extraordinary capability, magical charm beyond imagine, and mystical insight unknown to mortalkind.  However, as the sailor’s song rang out across the stretch of sea each night, Brian briefly pondered the song’s power, as if the boy possessed a magic that worked on even him.

Hiding within the gloom, Brian eagerly delved deep beneath the song’s surface, striving to pick apart each simple working piece, to glean some underlying meaning from the melody which hung lightly in the air.  He saw the boy’s pain, his hurt, his isolation, and at once, saw himself.

Brian had spent an uncomfortable amount of time alone, preying on the slim margin of foolhearted sailors that crossed his waters.  Legends and folk stories passed around dinner tables and campfires made his job frustratingly harder, as it had for most other sirenfolk, and this gave him a wealth of solitude, time spent wandering the open ocean, searching.

He searched for boys whose names he did not know, did not bother asking for.  He always watched them for a day or two, sometimes three, keeping a healthy distance from their ship, until the final day’s sun sank low beneath the sea.  It was then that Brian drew close to the deck, keeping a calculated demeanor as he spoke in hushed tones of honey, luring his victim over the rim, into the frigid waters.  

Brian did not speak as he dragged each boy into the briny depths, bringing them to a watery grave, void of breath, void of life.  His eyes were glassy, cold, emotionless. He told himself he had to be. It was better this way. Safer this way.

It did not matter that he had spent hours beneath the brazen sun, the skin of his back beaten by heat, peering gingerly around rocks to watch sailor boys push skinny mops across the decks of their ships, hoist steel anchors, pull coarse ropes to raise and lower the sails.

It did not matter that he knew the way hot blush crept across his cheeks as he watched his favorites.

As Brian felt his desire grow stronger for his newest sailor boy infatuation, he kept a close eye on his growing anxieties as well.  This had never turned out well before. This had never turned out at all before, he quickly realized, sinking beneath the churning waves to get a better hold on this thoughts.  

Through years and years of experience, trial, and some searing failure, Brian had learned to keep a hearty distance from the boys that he drowned. It had been this way for as long as he was willing to remember, keeping a handful of the more harrowing memories tucked away for now. Relationships with boys he could not follow would not, nor would they ever, last.  He could not make a life with a land dweller, and he had made peace with this by now. He had to.

Yet as the dark haired sailor boy reached up to tuck a loose strand behind his ear, gazing dolefully into the face of the moon, starlight dancing high overhead, Brian felt as if he were crushed beneath the weight of the open sky.

Slipping once more beneath the folds of the sea, Brian glided further from the silhouette of the ship, pausing once to cast wistful eyes at the nearly-empty stretch of deck bathing in the moonlight.  He seeked isolation in times of fruitless admiration, knowing that it was the one thing that could truly mend his shame. If he wasn’t alone, he was chasing someone.

As Brian carved his way through the tossing waves, he circled a small rocky island jutting from the depths below, and slid onto its surface in one fluid motion, making sure to check his balance before delicately stretching his limbs out.  The siren moved to sigh deeply, although he had no breath to give, and rested his chin gingerly atop one hand.

 

He was thoroughly fucked.

 

Letting his eyes sweep across the deep expanse of night sky above, the refrain of a song began to form in Brian’s chest, a breathy, pitched thrum taking form within his slender throat.  He listened as it slowly unfurled corded wings, knitted with a warmth that spread through the siren’s cold form, wrapped tight around his bitter fingers, soaked in salt. He nurtured a melody that stood cold and alone, a fearless sort of full, draped in dripping silk, exhilaration, the kind you could seek a terrifying home from.  He knew this was the sort of song that did not seek an audience.

Brian was dizzy on craving, pillowed on racing pulse, threadbare hunger, reckless longing.  He crooned a nest of tangled letters, licks of lullaby meant for nobody, and somebody he knew he would not have.

As he finished singing, Brian dropped swiftly back into the dark water and slowly made his way back to the sailor boy’s ship.

 

It could never be over that easily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> brian's a messy dramatic bitch and i would never write him as otherwise
> 
> he's got problems such as MESSY FEELINGS and A LOT OF GUILT
> 
> join him on this tragic journey of figuring out how to deal with his emotions
> 
> i super didn't proofread this please point out any errors you might spot thx


	3. Chapter 3

They were no more than three weeks into their voyage, shrouded in the midst of night, when a storm struck.

It was an inevitable thing, really, even as the bold summer heat waxed and waned on the bare, open ocean.  The sailors busied themselves, making the most of their time in the naked sun before the weather took a turn for the worse, clouds rolling thick over the horizon like a bad omen.

In the days leading up to it, Pat knew to take his nights on deck with a small grain of salt; he had done this song and dance before.  Each time he braced his elbows on the brink of the ship, he felt the buzz in the air, a charge that he collected like a taste in the back of his mouth.  It reminded him to be light on his feet, dancing around the imminent danger just like he’d known how to do in years past.  It only took the edge off as much as it had to.

As the first crack of thunder tailed an arc of lightning across the dark sky, Pat did not wake.  He did not wake as the thunder coiled through the clouds, as the lightning held fierce and bright, like raw ink.  On this night, Pat was buried beneath the deck, tucked into a row of sleeping men, swallowed by a sea of dreams, trapped fast by the song of fancy.

Even as years past saw Pat a capable sailor, nothing in his past could he have used to foresee falling into a fog like this.  It clutched his thoughts tight, dreams rolling high and tall like candy vapor, clouds behind his eyelids even as the sun rose and fell, even as he took routine steps to clean the bunks, stand in line in the mess hall, tar the hull.  He found it hard to think of much other than the musical ichor he had been privy to a week prior, dripping through his mind, keeping him trapped underneath the surface of something insurmountable.  It was unbearable, and Pat wanted nothing but to be kept here in this golden dream for the rest of his mortal days.

As fate would have it happen, Pat did not stir as the storm built a nest in the reaches of the sky above the ship in which he slept.  Instead he dreamed of a boy whose face he cannot recognize, lit up by stars.  He curled into his hammock as boisterous thunder built louder, as if it was a pillow for him to rest his tired head upon.

Rain began to lash gently at the ship’s great form, and in an instant the deck was painted with rainfall, punctuated by claps of thunder.  The chatter of rain above Pat’s head drew him in strands from his thick clouds of fantasy, and briefly, he lost himself, not knowing where he was.  Shoved into a dark new world, Pat felt himself alone, and without purpose, save for the flutter of rainfall above him.  He swallowed thickly.  This didn’t feel right.  He slowly let the lights pop on in his head, knowing to take it slow when he had been shrouded in sleep as deeply as he had.

 

When the first swell of sea rocks the ship to one side, alarms pound through Pat’s head, and he shoots up in his hammock, pulse racing.  Years prior, he was sleeping softly on the deck when the season’s storms rolled through.  Here and now, Pat is tucked into the cramped sailors’ quarters, confined within a prison of hammocks packed tightly together.  He wills his legs to work, his lips to work, needing to form a shout, anything to wake the men sleeping beside him.  He tries in vain, tries desperately as the boat shakes and trembles beneath the skies above. 

Halfway across the hall after getting his legs to work, Pat briefly thinks of his life at home, his small, empty room in the city, occupied by restless spirits and the dust beneath his bed.  He wonders if instead he should have stayed behind to watch the way the sun filters through his small window in the morning, wonders if the long, hollow, hungry days are worth more than the nights spent wading through seawater.  His toes begin to lose feeling, swathed in icy water, and he hisses a sharp, biting curse under his breath.

Pat has thrown open the door, has braved the climb up the stairs to the deck even as rushing water pushed and pulled at his tired legs, has thrust his head above deck, has looked around wildly, trying to find a way to safety, or a crew member in need.  But he is not here.  Pat is thumbing through his racing thoughts, a thousand miles away, wondering if anyone will miss him when he’s dead.  Wondering if somewhere, out there, somebody remembers what his name is, what he looks like, what his laugh sounds like.

On the edge of the deck, gazing into the eye of the storm, Pat pushes at the wet hair whipping at his forehead with one hand, gripping the rail until his knuckles are icy white.  The inky dark face of the sea below is shifting into shapes he cannot see, cannot fathom.  He screws his eyes shut and casts his face up towards the swirling skies with an exhilaration that tears straight through him, something he has not felt the touch of for a very long time, if ever.  He is terrified by how much he feels, like lightning just beneath his skin, coursing through his veins.

A half-sunken ship tumbling through a storm is not a steady creature.  And so Pat, standing on the brink of something raw and tumultuous, falls.  He falls fast, fast into the tossing waves, lost to the cold black sea.

 

––

 

 

The ocean is not without secrecy, especially in times of need, and moments of urgency.  Lost to the rolling water, the ocean cloaks slumbering beasts, restless tides, raw and breathless fury; a clawing need for survival above all else.  Chance is unpredictable, breaks against the shore of changing seasons, the passing of time.  It works in unseen ways, like shifting plates beneath the face of earth.

 

As Brian sees Pat fall from his ship and into the tossing waves, he is already halfway across the ocean, cutting through the water with a fervor he has not used in years.

He twists and slips through the waves with ease, eyes trained on the blurry shapeless form ahead of him, never taking them off his mark.  He knows what he needs to do, although he doesn't know how he will do it.  He just knows that if he doesn't he will lose everything.

Diving down to search for Pat among the waves is harder than Brian anticipates, and he calls upon his heightened senses to scan the dark waters for the boy, feeling every nerve sing an urgent song. As he swerves and shoots through the sea, the tension in his body grows sharp, cutting him into a mess of butterflies. Every second he spends unable to find Pat, he grows more and more panicked.

Somewhere along the way he begins to chant a mantra in his head, a plea to a higher power, whoever can hear him. _Please. Please. Please. Please. Not this time._ He doesn't care if it will help, he just needs to cling to it, like a child clutching to a blanket. He holds the words firmly in his hand, and does not let go.

Brian prays to every god he does and does not believe in once he spots Pat, sinking through the sea. He thanks them as he is diving deeper, as he is scooping Pat into his tired, tired arms, as he is freeing him from the clutches of pale death. He is swimming, faster now, and he doesn't know where they're going. He doesn't care. This is enough.

Brian's legs protest as he drags Pat onto the shore, and he drops to his knees, pressing every inch of himself flush against him as if he's trying to soak up the cold seeping from his bones. He does what he can, scrambling to assemble a fire, anything, something to save the boy lying against the cold sand, sapped of warmth. He is on autopilot, thinking of nothing but simple survival, and how he'll finally get to watch the stars with him once this is all over.

As he works, Brian begins to think. He thinks of the joy he saw dancing in the boy's eyes as he stood facing the storm, moments before he plunged into the sea. He wonders how he might think of him, wonders if he will be accepted with open arms, or fiercely rejected. He studies the way the boy's dripping hair clings to his head, the way his lips are slightly parted, the water caught on his eyelashes. His thoughts even briefly flash back to the way he saw the ship's great masts sink slowly beneath the rolling waves, lost to the turning of the sea.

He does not once consider his fervor with which he saved the boy from death, or how he pleaded with the sea.

Collapsing to the sand in a rare state of exhaustion, Brian lets himself drift, glancing beside him to check if the boy still breathed. Satisfied with the answer, he takes one last look at the storm over the horizon, muttering a prayer of thanks under his breath before drifting off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when i wrote the first part i kept thinking. snzzzzzz PAT YOUR SHIP
> 
> i dont even fuxking. i dunno. idk if this is readable or coherent. i changed tense halfway thru and idk why
> 
> its 245 am and i just wanted to...post something bc i havent been productive for 2 days and i feel bad
> 
> i have a sideblog now https://soakedinsaltwater.tumblr.com


	4. Chapter 4

In all his years as a sailor, Pat had never had much room for spontaneity.  Living life scheduled around trips from point A to point B meant that rarely did he find a lull in his rigorous planning, and he certainly hadn’t gone on any sort of impromptu trip in _ages_.  He had accepted a long time ago that his days spent adventuring and sightseeing had come to an end, given way to a life at sea, of little sleep and back-breaking work.  It was just how it had to be.

As Pat wakes up on the shore of an unrecognizable island, half-buried beneath damp sand and palm fronds, no hint of chill in his body or creak of ship to be heard, he thinks he is dead.   _Knows_ he is.  His thoughts flick back to the tumbling of his ship, the great roaring of the skies, the rain on his skin.  He must’ve drowned, and now he’s here, in...where, exactly? He never thought himself significant enough to have earned a spot in heaven, or hell, for that matter.  Maybe he’s on some island inbetween, a crack in the sky.

His spiralling thoughts are interrupted by the sound of humming, drifting through the thick foliage of a jungle not far from where Pat is laying on the shore.  A gentle, lilting tune, it cracks and wavers but carries itself to him regardless, resting lightly in his head. His curiosity is piqued, and before he knows it he is unearthing himself, brushing himself off in a daze, letting sand drip from him as he wanders towards the jungle, towards the source of the humming.

He walks slowly, gently, as if he is afraid he’ll take a wrong step, as if he is trailing a deer, and it’ll flee if if his footsteps are too heavy.  Stepping lightly through the brush, the harsh drone of the jungle takes a backseat to the melody in the air, and Pat follows his ears to what he can only hope is the voice behind it.  His thoughts are foggy, although mostly coherent, and plagued by an insatiable curiosity. If he is not alone on this island, he must seek out the other inhabitants. Who else could have ended up here with him, if this truly was the afterlife?

As he peels back layers of foliage to peer into a small clearing among the trees, Pat sees a boy.  Young, although not by much. Gentle features framed by wavy, tawny locks. Soft, pale skin dotted by several dark moles, like constellations.  He is almost nude, save for a pair of cloth shorts draped across his loins, and a thin, sheer shirt, flowing gently in the breeze.

The boy is sitting crosslegged on a rock wrapped in bright green moss, humming gently as he contemplates the swaying net of treetops above.  There is a look in his eye that Pat recognizes as pensive, absorbed so deeply in his thoughts that he does not turn even as Pat steps gingerly into the clearing, beyond the dense brush to face the boy.  Pat lets himself be carried by the soft tune, swaying lightly where he stands as he watches him, gazes at the boy’s delicate profile freckled by sun filtered through the jungle trees.

Pat’s foot comes down clumsily on a dry branch, snapping it cleanly in half, and the boy whips his head around, catching the sailor’s eyes in his own.  Hints of clashing emotion flash in his bright, expressive eyes; ardor, relief, melancholy. And something deeper, Pat realizes– something opaque, cryptic.  As he stares deep into the boy’s gaze, transfixed, he thinks he sees a hint of...fear.

 

Stunned into near silence, Pat has no words to say what’s on his mind.  He is the most beautiful boy he’s ever seen.

 

–-

 

Taking one last look at the sailor boy’s sleeping form, Brian turns with a sigh and begins walking into the thick jungle ahead.  Wandering through knotted trees and ample green fronds the size of his head, muddled by the buzzing of insects and whooping of birds,  he begins to think. Faced suddenly with the boy’s unyielding presence, he’s had no time to consider the possibly disastrous consequences of his proximity.  In all his hurry last night, he hadn’t thought about it, mind plagued with urgency, survival. But now, the boy is alive and breathing, sleeping a stone’s throw away from Brian, and when he wakes up...then what? Will he _remember_?

“This is a fucking disaster,” Brian grumbles under his breath, kicking a stray twig from his path.  “I’ve been alive for how many years? And I go and get attached to some penniless sailor boy without a name.”

He pushes through the green growth to reveal a small clearing, blanketed in bright moss and dotted with a few rocks.  Crossing the clearing, Brian sinks onto one of the rocks, delicately resting his head in his hands and winding his fingers through his hair.  “I’ve got nowhere to go,” he breathes, softly. As if the bugs beneath the dirt would overhear. _I should’ve stayed with my sisters_ , he thinks, and then winces, like the idea is hot to the touch.  His sisters had no home for him. Brian screws his eyes shut and pictures his mother’s jeering face, her biting laugh as she tells him there is no place in the ocean for siren boys like him.   _You have no home here. You’re soft in the middle, and the rot will come for you sooner or later._ “Yeah,” he whispers, into his hands.  “It’s already here.”

Turning his head to the sky, Brian ponders the sailor boy’s soft jaw, peppered with neglected stubble, and the wisps of dark hair that frame his sharp face, his strong nose.  There is a softness in his eyes that Brian wants to bathe in, wants to drown in. The shadow of a smile cracks across his face as he feels a lightness in his chest, a fluttering that chases the burden of memory from his heart.  Even if for a moment, he would hold this tightly in his hand. “You’re so close…” he murmured, eyes fixed on the trees above. “So close to me here, on this island, that maybe I could…” He trailed off, unsure of where he was going.  It didn’t matter, though, did it? He had gotten this far already.

He wants to sing.  Wants the boy to come running to him, wants to wrap himself up in his illusion, drape himself in falsity, no matter how immoral it may be.  He knows this cannot happen, it would only make things worse for him, although that won’t stop Brian from daydreaming about wrapping the boy in his arms, crooning soft songs to him, having what he wants, for once, at last.

Glancing nervously into the jungle stretching around him, Brian stands and checks his surroundings once before settling back down and admiring the shards of blue sky peeking through the treetops.  It couldn’t hurt to sing softly, could it? He knew he couldn’t sing around the boy, couldn’t risk revealing his secret, but if he was asleep, there was no harm, right?

Brian begins to hum.  An aimless tune, it takes no real form, just something to fill the air, act as a companion.  As his hum grows broader and buzzes through his chest, he sways gently with the trees, following their lead as he loses himself in his empty melody.  The drone of the island surrounding him melts away as he floats on waves of his own creation, gently, up through the foliage and into the clouds above.  He is drowning in his mind, but this hum is his lifeboat, his salvation. He lets it be.

Pillowed in his song, Brian does not hear the green growth bend and shuffle as someone makes their way through the jungle behind him.

He doesn’t hear the soft gasp of the boy as he steps through into the clearing, nor does he feel his stare burning into the back of his neck.

Brian is stirred from his humming by a sharp crack behind him, and he whips his head around, mortified.  Did the boy hear him? Did he like it? Does he _know?_ He’s assaulted by an onslaught of questions whirling through his mind as he turns around to face the figure standing behind him.

Locking eyes with the sailor boy he’s been chasing for months, dreaming about for longer than he can remember, all that Brian can hear is the roaring of blood in his ears, the heavy drum of his heart.  His thoughts melt from his head before he can grab them, and he’s left with a knot of emotions churning in his gut, flashing in his eyes. A deer caught in headlights, Brian cannot know how to react. He holds onto their locked eyes like he would float away if not tethered to the earth.

 

He can’t speak.  What would he say? He’s lost in his eyes.

 

The boy opens his mouth to speak.

 

–-

 

“I, uh, like your song,” Pat stammers, and then winces.  His voice cracks from disuse, and he feels shame bubble up in his cheeks.

Disheartened by the lack of response, he steels his nerves and tries again, reaching for the words he needs.  “I’m Patrick. Uh, Pat. You can call me Pat.”

He sees the boy swallow, and take a small step forward.  He looks as though he’s searching for something. “Do you know who I am?”

“Should I?” Pat frowns.  “I’m a little confused, actually– could you tell me where I am? Did you die in the storm, too?”

The boy looks taken aback for a moment, and Pat sees something just short of amusement dance in his eyes.  “Unfortunately, this isn’t the afterlife, if that’s what you’re thinking. No, I…” He trails off for a second, and then lightly shakes his head.  “As far as I know, we’re the only ones who survived last night. It’s a bit of a, uh, shame, but I woke up here on the shore this morning, and I guess you did too.”  He quickly licks his lips, almost nervously.

Pat’s breath catches in his throat as he realizes that everyone he knew, everyone he spent time with, his only tether to his former life, is gone.  Sunk beneath the waves, lost to the turning of the sea. He thinks of his bunk, the sun beating on his back as he labors, day after day. He thinks of the way he spent his life in solitude, gripping the few moments he truly had alone tight in his palm, afraid they would be stripped away.  He thinks of how the stars were his only confidant.

 

He’s almost struck dizzy with exhilaration, realizing that, for the first time in seventeen years, he’s free.

 

Pat hears a light chuckle behind him, and turns his head expectantly.

“Was it really that bad?” The boy giggles.  “You look like you just got out of prison and received, like, a large sum of money.  I’d have thought you’d be at least a _little_ sad about it.”

Pat laughs, the air rushing from his lungs.  “I mean, I’m fucking terrified, y’know? Basically the only thing I’ve ever known just sank to the bottom of the ocean.  I’m shaken up,” he admits, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. He takes a deep breath before continuing. “But...to be completely honest, I was trapped.  I’ve spent the past seventeen years hiding from that feeling, and now the rug’s been pulled from under me. I’m...I don’t know what to say, I’m…”

“Overwhelmed?” The boy offers, and Pat looks up to meet his gaze.

He sees a faded light in his eyes, something almost forlorn in nature, and it plucks at his heart momentarily.

“...Yeah.  Exactly.”

They hold each other’s gaze, sharing the moment beneath the canopy of swirling green above.  The hoots and cries of the jungle around them slowly lose color, fading as the world falls away, and they are left standing, staring, gazing.

After what feels like forever, Pat speaks up.  “I don’t think I ever caught your name.”

The boy laughs, and his eyes grow gentle.  He lightly pushes his hair from his face before answering.

“It’s Brian.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so glad shit's finally popping off! we're halfway thru, lads!
> 
> as always, you can find me on my twitter @hachimachis or tumblr @soakedinsaltwater if you wanna say hi!
> 
> <3


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

 

"Brian, wait up!” Pat grins and takes off running after the tawny-haired boy slipping quickly through the thick jungle ahead of him.  “I’m an old man, I don’t have the– _huff–_ body of a fucking spidermonkey like you seem to.” He stops to brace his hands on his knees, sucking air into his burning lungs. “Jesus Christ, I’m getting soft,” he mutters, drawing a hand over his brow.

“Well, sailor work doesn’t really account for being a weak coward,” Brian teases, popping his head around a bush.  “Lucky for you, Pat Gill, I’m incredibly generous and won’t leave you behind to get eaten by murder cats.”

“Weak  _and_  a coward?” Pat laughs, smiling up at Brian, who was strutting over to him with exaggerated confidence.  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were challenging me, monkey boy.”

“ _Me_? Challenge  _you_? Well, I never,” Brian feigns a look of shock, placing his hand over his chest for dramatic effect.  “That would imply that you have something to offer.”  He shoots Pat a playful look and offers him a hand.

Pat chuckles and takes it, feeling his heart skip as he catches the boy's gentle eyes, gleaming with mirth.

"Coming from the one who flat-out refuses to help me with dinner every night? I'm pretty sure I have at least one thing to bring to the table," Pat scoffs, straightening his back.  "Like, y'know, food."

Brian bristles at that, crossing his arms indignantly, and Pat can't help but smile inwardly at his goofy bravado.  It was incredibly endearing, the way he liked to put on a show everytime he talked.  His tone remained pleasant, however, and Pat could see a softness in his eyes that made his knees grow weak.  This boy was dangerously charming.

"Hey, I help out with dinner now and again," Brian protests, flashing him a toothy grin.  "If by dinner you mean being incredibly cool, all the time, and never, uh, panicking about small things."

"The other day you almost had a breakdown because you thought a bird was judging you."

"I just didn't want it to get the wrong idea!" Brian was giggling now, eyes crinkling at the corners as he let it shake through his chest and shoulders.  "It caught me in a very vulnerable moment, Pat.  I saw it in its eyes!"

His laughter, like all things he did, was frustratingly infectious, and Pat found the air pushed from his lungs in a wheeze, a hearty laugh rattling in his chest.  He felt something light in his heart, as if it were made of cotton.

 

A week ago, if you had asked Pat Gill if he'd like to take a vacation on a remote and tropical island with a beautiful stranger, he would have laughed nervously and pushed the thought from his mind.  Here and now, as the late summer sun makes its rounds across the sky, Pat has never felt better, never felt freer.

He convinces himself it's the jungle air that's doing him good. Life outside the briny walls of a rotting ship, trading nights among rows of sleeping bodies and pushing mops across decks for ducking and weaving through overgrown greenery, surrounded by harsh chattering of insects and birds.

It was an easier explanation than the alternative, which was–

"Try to keep up, Pat!" Brian taunts as he rounds a corner, disappearing behind a thick tree trunk.  "We wouldn't want you getting lost and eaten by worms or something."

"Worms are friends, Brian!" Pat calls, climbing clumsily over a rock to scramble after him. "Be nice to them." 

...Well. He does his best to push those thoughts from his mind when they oh-so-conveniently pop up now and again.  He's made a friend, something he's rarely, if ever, granted.  It's nice to be in someone's company, especially thrust into such an unfamiliar world and vying for survival, but the thought of taking a risk and losing what he had was far worse than anything he was feeling...right?

Although the way the sunlight creeps through the trees and freckles its way across his cheeks is simply  _breathtaking_ , and Pat notes with a sigh that he could get lost in the crinkles that blossom around his eyes whenever he smiles wide enough, and the way he looks at Pat whenever he's talking, like the world has fallen away and made a home in his soft lidded eyes, it makes the words threaten to die in his throat–

He coughs sharply, gently shaking his head to clear his thoughts, fixing his gaze on the damp jungle floor ahead of him.  No use in pining, he reminds himself.  Besides, there were other corners of his thoughts.

Despite filling his days with a childish lust for adventure, romping through trees and combing beaches for gleaming treasures, a corner of Pat's mind still remains preoccupied with the memory of a song, a hazy fog rolled over the back of his thoughts as if to place him in a trance once more.  He's tried in vain to shove it from his mind, muttering to himself that his chances of finding the voice were long gone, lost to sea with his sunken ship.  But it remains, stubbornly.

He hums the tune to himself almost subconsciously as he traipses through the brush, following the back of Brian's bobbing head as he threads through the jungle trees.  If he has to live with a mystery song stuck in his head, he might as well sing it, right?

Pat jogs to catch up, lightly puffing to catch his breath as he ducks under some vines. He resumes his song where he left off, softly humming to himself absentmindedly.

 

Brian stops in his tracks.

 

Anxiety bubbles up in his chest as Pat turns to face him. "What? What happened? Are you okay?" He takes a small step towards Brian, brows knitted with concern.

"Where did you hear that song?" Brian's eyes are wide, wider than they've ever been.  His tone is unreadable.  "Tell me."

"I--" Pat stops, frowning. He opens his mouth, then closes it.  What does he say? The fucking  _ocean_  sang it to him? Nothing he could say would be believable, he realizes. "Uh. I...I don't know," he shrugs, bewildered.  "One day it was just...there."  A shitty lie, but he was never a great liar.  He couldn't tell Brian about his dreams, about any of that–  especially not his desire to find the voice behind it.

A shadow crosses Brian's face, and he closes his eyes, deep in thought.  He whispers something, too soft for Pat to hear.  His presence is smaller than he has ever seen it, as if he is shrinking from Pat's gaze, as if he is a robin's egg in his hand.  Seeing him fragile, Pat is gripped by fear, afraid he will break him, afraid to know that he can be broken.  It's an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

The moment soon passes, and they don't speak of it again.

 

\--

 

Brian whistles.  "It's like...fire," he murmurs, awestruck.  "Incredible."

A week and two days into their Big Island Adventure (Pat jokes about selling out someday in the future, something about branding deals, Brian's not sure it's entirely a joke) and he still can never quite get used to the intensity of the sunsets.

He's always thought time was silly, something humans use to distract themselves from reality, so he had no use for it even before landing on this island.  Not like Pat did.  However, he could get used to living his life on rails, following the trailblazing sun across the sky as it touched down on the water each night.  It gave him something to look forward to, a cacophony of color living on a schedule.

Pat shoves his way out of the unforgiving brush and pads onto the sand next to him.  "Yeah," he breathes, following Brian's gaze.  "I don't think I could ever get tired of it."  He grins and turns his head toward the sky.  "The real beauty's in the stars, though.  I wonder if they'll be any good tonight."

Brian giggles, puzzled.  "Isn't that kind of the point? They're always good."

"Yeah, but if I convince myself that it's a 50/50 chance, I'm always pleasantly surprised," Pat explains with a smile, and the laughter in his eyes catches in Brian's throat a little bit.

"If I give you a boost into that tree, will you share some certified Pat Facts with me, Pat Gill?" Brian gestures at a stout, gnarled kapok tree, branches evenly fanned out at the top.

"What's a Pat Fact?" Pat asks, chuckling.  He tucks a strand of hair behind his ear.  "Also, I could probably climb that tree myself in like, two seconds. After all, I'm incredibly strong." He weakly flexes an arm, and Brian descends into laughter.

"You've bested me this time, Patrick."  He crosses the sand, reaching the base of the tree and hoisting himself up to the lowest branch.  Climbing trees was definitely his favorite part of being a landwalker.  "Pat Facts await!" Brian shouts, scaling the tree with ease and leaving Pat to climb feebly after him.

Letting the wind comb through his hair, Brian sits and ponders the twilight sky.  The last grey clouds streak across the horizon like dust trails left by the day's sun, as the sky bruises shades of dark blue to match the sea.  This is his favorite time of day.  It reminds him of the light of a ship bobbing off the horizon, dimming in anticipation as the real show starts, and the stars begin to pop across the night.

It reminds him of the sailor boy, of Pat, of his late nights watching the sky, stars trapped in his eyes.

Pat pulls himself up from the inner reaches of the tree, clambering up to sit beside Brian, drawing air into his lungs in big gulps.  "See...what I...mean? _Easy_." He gasps, smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Incredibly." Brian grins.

They watch the last heat of the sun dip beneath the horizon in silence, aided by the ebb and flow of the sea beneath them.  Brian knows little about sharing time with others, but he knows it's comfortable to share silence with Pat, and he cherishes it.

As the stars slowly begin to  start popping up across the sky, Brian pipes up.  "Okay, my thirst for facts hasn't been quenched yet.  I'm thirsty for  _knowledge_ , Pat."  He kicks his feet a little, as if to accentuate his point.

"Alright, fine. I guess I could come up with some facts," Pat sighs, defeated.  "I've got some, uh, star facts, I guess?"

"Tell me about the  _stars_ , Pat!"

"Okay, I don't know a lot, but I picked some stuff up from the sailors over the years so I think I know at least one thing." Pat scratches at his beard and scans the dark sky, looking for star patterns.

One of his favorite things in the world is listening to Pat talk, Brian has decided.  The subject doesn't matter, he just loves the way Pat's eyes gleam with excitement whenever he talks about a passion, the way his tone picks up, charges with a newfound energy.  It's incredible.

Pat points at a star, one that's glowing a bit red, a little brighter than the rest. "You see that star?"

Brian squints. "Yeah?"

"That's said to be the heart of a giant scorpion, uh, Scorpius, I think. If you look closely, you can actually see its tail."

Peering carefully into the sky, Brian spots a faint trail of stars curving off the red one. "I think I see it."

"Yeah, so, the red one is Antares, and the others are its tail."

"That's it?" Brian tilts his head. "I thought these things usually come with like, fifty pages of lore.  Star lore!"

Pat grins.  "Sometimes a kickass Scorpion  in the sky is just a kickass Scorpion in the sky, y'know? Oh, actually," he pauses, running a hand through his hair. "There _is_ something else."

"Oh?"

"So uh, the Polynesians, they actually saw it as something else."  Pat was gesturing now, making chopping motions with his hands to punctuate his points.  "They saw, uh, Antares, as like the end of a big fishhook.  They thought it belonged to the demigod Maui."

"Did he use it for like, stunts?"

"Yeah I think he's the god of stunts, actually."  They were both giggling now, letting the nighttime breeze sway them gently.

"I just think it's interesting how like, two cultures can see the same stars, in the same sky, and think up completely different stories," Pat muses.  "But they're still the same stars, y'know? It's all about perspective."

"Wild," Brian agrees.  "Thanks for the star facts, I feel enlightened."

"Mm."

Time passes. The moon is bright, and captures Brian's heart, as it always does.  Pat captures Brian's heart, as he always has.

He hears Pat sigh, and his heart sinks.  There's sadness trapped in that sigh.

"What's on your mind?"

Pat takes a deep breath and looks up, hides his eyes in the stars.

"Have you ever...have you ever been surrounded by people, people with goals, people with busy, tiring, routine lives, and felt millions of miles away?" He wrings his hands.  Brian senses the urgency in his movement.  "Like you'd be less lonely...alone. like you've never belonged in your place. These ranks I could never climb, these weary voyages, nights spent beneath the deck, measuring the way the ship tumbles, counting your meager, skeletal fucking salary..." He pauses, to take a breath. Pat is speaking quickly, like he's been holding onto the words and he needs to get them all out at once.

"I've never known what life could be outside careful calculation, scrabbling to make ends meet, turning tail to a busy city, but an empty home. The way the walls _stretch_ , Brian..." He trails off, voice breaking.  He clears his throat.  "Have you ever known what it's like to feel impossibly cramped, yet entirely too small? 

_Yes, I have_ , Brian wants to scream. Wants to scream it fast and strong into the night, with the moon as his witness, his sailor boy by his side. His Pat. Wants to yell  _yes, I've known it, lived it, became it, even. Became smaller beneath my mother's gaze, hardened and sharp, like stone. Shrunk beneath the wind whipped through my sisters' hair, became the waves crashing on the rocks. I was so very, very, small, and they were so very big,_ _wreathed in blood mixing like paint with sea foam, defined by bared teeth, saccharine song, wicked jeers. And I was always the boy with a heart too soft, too mushy, too reckless. Unrealistic. Pathetic.  There was no place for me at home._

Pat takes a moment to compose himself before continuing.  He does not wipe the hurt from his face, and it pricks at Brian's heart like a needle.  

"I've grown up learning how to spend my days defined by softened walls of wood and the taste of salt in lungs, waking to an empty stomach, sleeping on nightmares of a churning black sea...I felt so _small_."  He is quivering, and Brian yearns to soothe him. "But sitting in a tree far above the shore, underneath a vast, endless blanket of stars, eating fresh fruit with you every day and laughing, just  _laughing_  at impossible freedom, reckless joy...I can be bigger than I ever have. This is bigger than anything I've ever known, Brian, I--" Tears well up in his eyes, and this time, Brian can't stop himself from reaching up to wipe them away.  He looks at Pat like a fragile, broken bird, a precious thing.

"It's okay," he murmurs, gently cupping Pat's stubbled cheek, stroking a careful thumb across dark scruff grown bolder with time.  "Pat," he whispers, almost awestruck. he barely speaks above the wind, as if he's afraid he'll scare the moment away. 

"You can't know how important you make me feel," He continues. "I've never been able to trust someone like y--" Brian's breath hitches, almost imperceptibly.  "Someone...so quickly, before." He amends. 

Shit. Fuck. Did Pat catch that? He couldn't have. He couldn't have, because that would mean the end of this, the most important thing that's ever happened to him, and that  _can't happen._

Brian averts his gaze, looks at anything else, the waves lapping at the shore, the moon catching on the water, the trees swaying softly. Meeting Pat's gaze means facing his consequences, and he's not ready to admit that he slipped up. He's never slipped up, not once so far, not all week.  He was so careful not to sing, not to swim, not to change.

Instead, Brian does the only thing he's learned how to do in his entire life. He panics, and flees.

"Hey, actually, it's getting pretty...I need to sleep. Now."

He scrambles down the tree, scratching up his palms in his haste. he feels sharp bark scrape down his knee, and hisses sharply.  This is so stupid.  Tears burn his eyes, and he squints them shut. Stupid, sensitive.  He's running before his feet hit the ground, into the dark brush, away from his stupid, shitty idiot fuckup.

 

Pat is left alone in the tree.

 

He peers down into the buzzing foliage, trying desperately to pick out movement.  Nothing.  He's gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (slaps my nuts) its 4:24 am and u know wjat that means ;)
> 
> i typed all of this in my notes app im sorry


End file.
